Gorham's Ltd. on St. John's Road, Pembroke, has now begun the arduous task of establishing a link with some 900 business partners internationally.

On-Lines sales representative, Mr. Marco Montarsolo, said: "The world is rapidly moving towards the electronic exchange of data, and to stay competitive, Bermudian companies must follow suit.'' Mr. Montarsolo said that certain administrative costs can be reduced by up to 80 percent.

The test was recently completed when Gorham's dialled into an IBM Information Network node in Raleigh, North Carolina, transmitting purchase orders across a mailbox on Commerce Net (OrderNet). Acknowledgements were sent back and received at Gorhams.

The retailer's systems manager, Mr. Rod Farrington, said the company is looking forward to placing orders substantially faster.

He said: "We've only really stuck our toe in the water. Eventually, our orders for items will be much faster. But first we must go through the process of putting 900 trading partners into our system.

"That is going to be a very time-consuming, complex process. We still have only hooked up one.

"When we finish, we expect that orders will be processed in the various international companies and arrive here much sooner. Our orders will in fact, go right into their computer.

"Right now, it takes sometimes four to six weeks just to find out what something costs us. Eventually, it will take less than a week.'' It could take as long as three years to get completely hooked up to all of the companies that Gorhams does business with overseas. And during that period they will be required to write software programmes to allow the computers to talk the same language.

"EDI will become a much more important part of life in the next five years.

If we were in the United States, now, we would have no choice. It is something that you would have to do,;'' Mr. Farrington said.

"Up to now, we have been placing orders by using the fax machine, which takes a lot longer to get the information into the right area, because someone would still have to transfer that information to a computer. And, there is always the chance of human error.'' Gorham's is expecting to see the economic benefits down the road, but admits that a smaller company dealing with a few international concerns would be able to see the benefits almost directly.